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Mother-in-Law died in March.
She was getting full Council Tax support, Pension Credit, and her home care costs were being paid by the County Council.
Now it turns out that she had about 38k in savings, which had built up over several years (probably without her knowing).
The DWP, and the 2 Councils involved are reviewing her accounts and will probably ask for money back (possibly quite a lot).
The 'catch-22' is that if she'd told them all a year or two ago of her savings, she'd have paid home care herself, and got much reduced pension credit, but she'd then have spent all the savings in about 18 months, and be legitimately back on full support. The value of her house wouldn't be included in all this.
Now, however, the total they ask for repayment could be many times what she had in savings, meaning a large amount of the money from the house sale would be 'lost' to these repayments.
Has anyone else been stuck in this lunatic situation, and how did you resolve it?
Are they allowed to dig into the house money for repayment ?
Seriously thinking of handing over to a solicitor to sort out...(but of course that's more money out of the estate)
She was getting full Council Tax support, Pension Credit, and her home care costs were being paid by the County Council.
Now it turns out that she had about 38k in savings, which had built up over several years (probably without her knowing).
The DWP, and the 2 Councils involved are reviewing her accounts and will probably ask for money back (possibly quite a lot).
The 'catch-22' is that if she'd told them all a year or two ago of her savings, she'd have paid home care herself, and got much reduced pension credit, but she'd then have spent all the savings in about 18 months, and be legitimately back on full support. The value of her house wouldn't be included in all this.
Now, however, the total they ask for repayment could be many times what she had in savings, meaning a large amount of the money from the house sale would be 'lost' to these repayments.
Has anyone else been stuck in this lunatic situation, and how did you resolve it?
Are they allowed to dig into the house money for repayment ?
Seriously thinking of handing over to a solicitor to sort out...(but of course that's more money out of the estate)
